By Bulldog Drummond Rangers v Arsenal: the history between the clubs So far this season Rangers have (according to the information I’ve got, and please don’t shout at me if I’ve missed something) had three new players arrive, all on a free. Fashion Sakala, a 24 year old centre forward from KV Oostended on a …
Read More “Rangers v Arsenal, the man who worked on the stadia of both clubs”
by Bulldog Drummond There is a long history connecting Arsenal and Rangers – something established not least because during Woolwich Arsenal’s darkest days of financial troubles, Rangers bought a few shares in Arsenal as a symbol of solidarity between the clubs. They were finally sold by Craig Whyte during the period of Rangers financial difficulties. …
Read More “Rangers v Arsenal: the history between the clubs”
By Sir Hardly Anyone and a pineapple Football journalists write transfer stories because for the most part they require no research, and when proven to be wrong, as about 97% will be, they simply blame the club for being slow or stingy. It is the same reason as to why they won’t comment on tactical …
Read More “111 players tipped to be coming to Arsenal: the full list”
By Tony Attwood One of the predictions that we made as the extraordinary tactical revolution constructed by Mikel Arteta was revealed last season, was that not only would the media refuse to recognise it, they would go to any lengths to hide the truth of the revolution going on at Arsenal. And would continue to …
Read More “Arsenal’s ten greatest triumphs under Mikel Arteta, ranked”
By Tony Attwood Journalists and bloggers were delighted with the performance of Arsenal on Tuesday as it gave them the chance to trot out their usual lines of hosts of missed opportunities by the Arsenal attack, mistakes at the back and above all the urgent need for more players. Such commentaries are written because they …
Read More “Maybe I ought to shut up and let this guy talk…”
By Sir Hardly Anyone and a pineapple* Arsenal have £250m transfer budget as club closes on 2 midfield signings So announces SPORTbible although they then immediately change the message and tell us that “Arsenal are reportedly prepared to spend £250m on at least five new signings this summer, as Mikel Arteta’s huge transfer rebuild begins.” Quite …
Read More “Why the idea that Arsenal need to spend £££ on defenders is completely daft”
Previously…. Hibs v Arsenal: Please avoid excessive shouting, singing or celebrating Hibs v Arsenal, the last time we played Hibs and why we played them. By Bulldog Drummond. Now the first thing to know about the Easter Road Stadium (also known as The Holy Ground) where we play late this afternoon is that it is …
Read More “Arsenal v Hibs: the ground and the Arsenal team (it’s a game of 2 halves)”
By Bulldog Drummond Please avoid excessive shouting, singing, or celebrating Message on Hibs website I’m not sure how many fans Arsenal will have at the ground, but I suspect a modest number, so I am not too sure that much of the excessive shouting will be coming from that sector. And to be fair that …
Read More “Hibs v Arsenal: Please avoid excessive shouting, singing or celebrating”
By Bulldog Drummond Well it seems like only six weeks ago that we were talking about Arsenal’s glorious run-in at the end of the season. Two draws and two defeats with eight wins in the last 12 games in both competitions. Not forgetting five Premier League wins all in a row to round the season …
Read More “Hibs v Arsenal, the last time we played Hibs and why we played them.”
By Tony Attwood There is that old saying that doing something, seeing it fail, and then doing it over and over again, is a sure sign of madness. It has been accredited to Albert Einstein quite often, although there is no sign that he wrote or said it anywhere. But I am reminded of that …
Read More “What happens when football and reality become separated? Uefa variant wins.”
By Tony Attwood The attitude of the media concerning football – especially in relation to Arsenal – is that you can indeed fool all of the people all of the time. So having made up a story and kept it running for as long as possible, when their tale turns out to be untrue they …
Read More “In football the objective is to fool all of the people all of the time”
By Sir Hardly Anyone The last edition of the transfer files on this site contains 107 players who are reputed to be signing for Arsenal. And now at last we have one who actually has signed. So one out of 107; that makes a 0.93% success rate. But let us have a look at some …
Read More “Arsenal sign player we signed six weeks ago and who is not coming to the club at all!”
According to Bloomburg, as of June 2020, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus had a combined net debt of €1.2bn as of June. But since then we have had the season of the virus, and now the excellent Law In Sport newsletter has reported that Barcelona on its own, has debts of over €1bn with Real …
Read More “The debts are out of control: are the superleague clubs really being ejected?”
By Bulldog Drummond So far the number of players tipped to be coming to Arsenal this summer is 107, while the number actually signed seems to be lurking somewhere around zero. Everyone currently in the squad has been tipped to be leaving, mostly because of Arsenal incompetence in negotiating their contracts. Thus having created the …
Read More “Hibernian v Arsenal: no signings, everyone leaving so what team can we pick”
By Tony Attwood As a member of the Arsenal Independent Supporters Association, and through my work in running the Arsenal History Society I do get occasional snippets of information from the club which lead me to think that matters are very much travelling in the right direction. (By which of course I mean they are …
Read More “Arsenal transforms its attitude towards its fans with significant pre-season changes”
By Tony Attwood There is a story doing the rounds in the United States that members of the US Women’s National Soccer Team turned their backs on the country’s national anthem. Films of the event don’t exist because it didn’t happen, but it seems there are tens of thousands of tweets etc proclaiming this to …
Read More “How viral lies about Arsenal are amplified by the media on a daily basis”
By Tony Attwood Talk about propaganda the FA certainly have the mass media in England under its control, as the FA talk up a new programme to improve grassroots football. Not surprisingly no mention was made by the FA about the utter disaster and total cock up of its previous attempts to do anything about …
Read More “A perfect example of football propaganda and not much to do with reality.”
By Sir Hardly Anyone So we are only in early July and more players have been tipped to sign for Arsenal this summer than in any of the last six seasons when we have been carrying out this survey! Here’s the list, coming soon – which tipsters are working the hardest (or if you prefer, …
Read More “7 players tipped to join Arsenal for the first time meaning 107 transfers this summer”
What Are the Biggest Issues Facing Football Today? Football is the most popular sport in the world, with around half of the global population reported to follow the game to at least some extent! The joy of playing and/or watching football is hard to beat, but unfortunately there are several issues that threaten the future …
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Postscript to my update piece from earlier today. The venue for the Champions League round 1 mini by Andrew Crawshaw With the Women’s Team still firmly in close season you might be forgiven for thinking that not much is happening but there is quite a lot bubbling away under the surface. Firstly here is a …
Read More “Arsenal Women, a July Update”
“The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now.” That comment about the future of journalism was written in 1948, but could have made in relation to today’s reporting of football where all we have, straight statement. And that is not just bad writing, …
Read More “As football supporters we are being brainwashed”
By Tony Attwood The Mirror newspaper has published the result of a survey in which it says, “Arsenal fans seem to have faith in most of their squad ahead of the 2021/22 season.” Now I would argue that is perfectly reasonable given the dramatic turn around in tactics and the extraordinarily powerful final two thirds …
Read More “Arsenal: “a disappointing end to what started as a promising campaign.””
By Tony Attwood Just imagine you are a football journalist and some way through the season your editor shouts [which is what he does because that is what editors do] that he wants an “Arsenal article.” Putting down your tipple of choice [because having a tipple of choice is de rigueur for journalists] you ask …
Read More “If this were you, and if this were Arsenal, what would you do?”
By Minser Double “To say it was a tough season for Arsenal and Arteta last season would be an understatement because he was probably lucky to survive it without being shown his P45.” That was HITC on 5 July. I don’t suppose HITC worries about its inaccuracies, after all they have already reported 42 players …
Read More “The great Arsenal untruth, and does it matter?”
By Tony Attwood We’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about the defence at Arsenal of late for two reasons. The most important is that it has been the scene of the most extraordinary tactical reformation that I’ve seen in my time as an Arsenal supporter (a period which goes back to the Neolithic …
Read More “Arsenal’s problem of late? Shots, goals, and (last season) accuracy”